Blaze of Glory
by Elisabeta
Summary: Mild slash. The end of Sands and El?


Title: Blaze of Glory  
  
Author: fangirl_lizzie  
  
Rating: PG-13, for violence.  
  
Pairing: Sands/El; mention of Sands/Lorenzo.  
  
Disclaimer: Not mine, don't sue. All you'll get is a collection of my trashy fanfic and a well-thumbed copy of LotR anyway.  
  
Notes: Written for lj comm="firstlines1000" challenge #19. Contains gratuitous use of the L-word. Please forgive me.  
  
Summary: The end of Sands and El?  
  
***  
  
"I'm not fighting with you right now," El said, his voice calm, his eyes anything but.  
  
It wasn't anything like the right place or the right time for this particular brand of Sands-related insanity. In a courtyard by a fountain, the water red with blood that wasn't theirs, half a dead cartel spread out at their feet like cut flowers. The other half would be coming. They didn't have time for this, but Sands didn't seem to care.  
  
"You want me to shoot you," El said, wiping his hands on his shirt.  
  
"Yes," Sands replied, though it wasn't really a question.  
  
"Why?"  
  
"It would be a fitting end."  
  
And El supposed it would. Sands dying by his hands would seem almost right somehow. Kill him before anyone else got a chance. Kill him because for him to die a lesser death would be a crime.  
  
"C'mon, El – I thought you were stronger than this."  
  
He sighed. "So did I." He thought he heard footsteps, people running inside the house. "You know, shatterproof is not a challenge."  
  
Sands was shaking. Well, mostly, because the hand that was holding the gun to El's head was steady as a gravestone. He had it pressed against El's forehead, finger on the trigger, the glare of the midday sun in the metal almost blinding. Of course, he *was* blind.  
  
"I love you," Sands said, and his voice was shaking too.  
  
"I know." El resisted the urge to go for his own gun. They were so close.  
  
"Tell me you love me too."  
  
"You know I do." And he knew he did.  
  
"I know. Just tell me before I fucking shoot you in the head."  
  
El swallowed, hard. He knew he'd do it – shoot – and then he'd be one dead Mariachi trickling blood and brains from his point-blank head wound. Then where would Sands be?  
  
"I love you," he murmured. "You know I do."  
  
"But not enough. Not enough."  
  
***  
  
They'd been working together, living out of the same suitcase and sleeping in the same hotel room for five months before El noticed, and even then he wasn't sure he was noticing what he thought he was noticing. It just wasn't something he'd considered as being a possibility; perhaps he'd have seen it sooner if Sands had still had his eyes, been able to look at him and not just *act* around him. It was disconcerting, to say the least.  
  
Sands was interested in him. Not that he came out and said it because well, for the most part that wasn't Sands' style. Sure, he could be direct when it suited him, but the rest of the time he just kept people guessing, he liked to keep people off-balance. And that was what he was doing with El, or trying to – the subtle flirting, the random snarking, a little inappropriate touching that only a partially inebriated and entirely blind Sands could get away with and still have his hands.  
  
El did his best not to respond in any way. He just couldn't. Not that he was homophobic – he was, in fact, far from it, which was probably the only reason he'd noticed it in the first place. He just... He couldn't. Not even when Sands was brushing against him, teasing him mercilessly. Not even when his patience gave and his subtlety went out the window, when there was no way El could not have known. Not even then. He still acted oblivious.  
  
It was a gamble, considering just how little he actually trusted him, introducing Sands to Lorenzo and Fideo, but a job came up that even in his craziest moments Sands wouldn't have taken on alone. They'd tried hitting up a couple of ex-CIA first but apparently they remembered Sands just a little too vividly, so semi-reluctantly El had mentioned his friends. Sands had seemed oddly intrigued by the idea and they'd all met up after Lorenzo had finished work for the night. Fideo was more than a little hammered. Looking at the two of them, and considering how erratic Sands could be, El wasn't sure how it was going to turn out.  
  
But the job came off without a hitch. Fideo picked up the only injury of the day, and that was by virtue of his own stupidity, going back when he realised he'd dropped his hip flask when he knew a dozen armed men were barrelling down the corridor after them. Considering their ridiculously high pay and the similarly ridiculous danger of the job, Fideo's gun-shot shoulder was a small price.  
  
Finding Sands in bed with Lorenzo the next morning, however, was not. El stared, like he knew he stared at Sands because he knew he couldn't know. H tried to pretend it didn't matter, but he was still frosty to Lorenzo and he and Sands still left that afternoon. Sands' smug smile soon died down when he realised El wasn't going to talk about it, no matter how much prodding he gave him.  
  
So then Sands started picking people up in bars. El knew only because Sands wanted him to know, he was sure, but mostly he ignored it. After all, they were partners, not lovers; he shouldn't have cared. But once, just once, El followed him. He'd pistol-whipped the big, longhaired Mexican unconscious before he even knew what he was doing. He had a feeling Sands enjoyed it, seeing El *care* like that, that it was the only reason he'd even picked him up in the first place.  
  
"I want you," Sands had said, standing there half naked in the hotel room, the guy leaking blood onto the rug at his feet.  
  
"I don't want you," El told him. "Not that way."  
  
"You just don't want anyone else to have me, either. Right?"  
  
El frowned. He shivered. He was glad that Sands couldn't see the look on his face. "Right," he said. Terrible thing, envy.  
  
Sands smirked. "And they say *I'm* insane."  
  
They never spoke of it again.  
  
***  
  
Three weeks. It seemed like Sands had accepted it, no matter just how crazy it all seemed; no more random pickups, no goading, no flirting. They slept in the same bed like they always had and El didn't find himself waking with Sands wrapped around him every morning. He hated to think of the effort it took for Sands to hold himself back, but he didn't ask why he did. It was everything that El had asked for and just about too much. And not enough. Not nearly enough.  
  
Then Sands had to go and pull a crazy stunt like *this*.  
  
"But not enough."  
  
El closed his eyes. "Too much," he said. "Too much."  
  
El shot first. Sands went down to his knees then shot back. El fell.  
  
Every gunshot he'd felt before had hurt like a son of a bitch. This one... this one he hardly felt at all. He was numb, except for the feel of hot blood pulsing from between his fingers as he clamped his hand to his chest.  
  
"It was always supposed to be this way," Sands said. "From the moment we met."  
  
El didn't doubt it. "So this is our blaze of glory," he replied.  
  
Then he moved his hand away and let his blood flow. He reached out and Sands reached out.  
  
It was a fitting end.  
  
*** End *** 


End file.
